Okay, now that you’ve checked off your list of teachers, people you went to school with or know from the local co-op gallery…how many female artists of note can you name?
Of note meaning right up there with the big boys.
Hmmm…not too many, eh? Two pop into my head fairly readily–Georgia O’Keefe. Frida Kahlo. Throw in Grandma Moses and make that three.
This is embarrassing. Especially since I’ve got a degree in art. It’s been a long time since I took any art history classes but yet if you asked how many MALE artists I could name, the big boys, I’d tell you to grab a cup of coffee and sit down ’cause this is gonna take awhile. I could tell you their names, Their most famous works. Who they hung out with. Where and when they lived and died. Along the way I’d throw in tidbits of juicy historical gossip.
Do you see what’s wrong with this picture?
I didn’t…but only because I never even thought about it. Been too busy raising a family, taking care of an elderly parent, tending critters, teaching art, making art…. I’ve been too busy squeezing everything in to look outside myself at the BIG picture. The picture that says the glass ceiling extends into the art world too.
Until my friend Tracy Verdugo (an artist as well as a woman–imagine that!) posted a link to a video on facebook. Check it out down below.
Late at night. Everyone else is in bed. Just me and my laptop…and the wireless connection.
Uh-oh…
I’ve done e-mail. Facebook. The news. I’ve skipped from art link to art link. Reading. Looking at pictures. Getting inspired. And then, somehow, I end up on Amazon.
Do you see where this is going?
Uh-huh…ART BOOKS!!!
Books! Book! Books! I loves me my books. Loves them so much a couple years ago I asked Santa for a Kindle. Because the books were taking over the house. Stacks of books by the bedside. On the floor. On every available surface. Towering over our heads as we wound our way through a literary forest, following the breadcrumbs from room to room.
Like something out of a bad reality TV show.
Well, okay. I’m embellishing. To make a point. Set the scene. Explain why I wanted needed a Kindle. I needed a Kindle for my inner infant instant gratification. For getting the book I want RIGHT NOW. Doesn’t matter if it’s 2AM. I just go on-line, click the buy now button and I’m reading the book within a minute.
Sweet.
Except don’t buy ART books on Kindle. Or any other e-reader for that matter. Art books need full size pages with big glossy photographs. Ones you can stare at and drool over.
So there I was, deep in Amazon’s Mixed Media section. It was late. I was tired. Defenses were down. And the buy now with one click button fit my finger just right.
I bought two. Flavor for Mixed Media: A Feast of Techniques for Texture, Color and Layers by Mary Beth Shaw. You can check it out here. And Unfurling, A Mixed-Media Workshop with Misty Mawn: Inspiration and Techniques for Self-Expression through Art by Misty Mawn. Here’s the link for that one.
They’ll be here in a couple of days but I really won’t have time to look at either one until after after the holidays. I’ll keep you posted. Look for the reviews in January.
And now I’d better go to bed before I buy something else.
Well here it is, the infamous tree from yesterday. the camera/computer connection is still out so I took a picture with my phone and emailed it to myself. Not the best way to do it but it gives you a visual.
Pictures are good. I like pictures. Which is probably why I’m an artist.
So right now the tree is naked. The lights go on tomorrow, along with whatever ornaments DaughterDearest Chooses to put up. We have glitter crusted macaroni angels going back over twenty years, treasures made when my kids were in preschool. And hung on the tree every year since. It sounds sweet but in reality it’s, umm…bordering on pathetic. Because some of them are little more than a single piece of pasta dangling from a tired red ribbon. I believe the originals were more complex examples of preschool art. Ziti bodies, elbow mac arms, bowtie wings. And of course the glitter. Lots of glitter.
They did not age well. Angel crumbs haunt the ornament boxes. Maybe it’s time to let them go. Flush ’em down the toilet or bury in the back yard with the dogs and cats. A couple of rats.
Or we could scatter the angel crumbs out front with my mom and dad. I’m sure they’d like that.
Or I can throw them in the garbage when no one is looking…except Santa. And God. Oh dear…how does one dispose of fallen angels?
Bringing a tree into the house inspires me to clean, something I do as infrequently as possible. I spent the day dusting and polishing. We’re all looking forward to sharing the holiday with the grand baby. She’s two years old, the perfect age for building sofa forts and cutting out sugar cookies with granma, aka moi.
Look at that face. OMG…I’ll be putty in her hands.
DaughterDearest and I went to Farmer Bob’s lot and picked out a Christmas tree today. A Nobel Fir, just like the one Mary and Joseph had–because one of us is a traditionalist, you see, and if oh! tannenbaum was good enough for the holy family then it’s good enough for ours. So says she-who-was-not-paying-for-the-tree. I, on the other hand, thought that maybe when the offspring sprung I wouldn’t have to do this anymore, that I could go back to decorating a few ailing houseplants (my houseplants are always ailing) and call it Happy Holidays.
Because if you want to get Biblical, I’m sure that’s what Mary did. Once her son left home and started hanging with the fishermen (What? No doctors???) I bet she was relieved she didn’t have to bake the birthday fruitcake and hunt down Farmer Bob’s great-great-great-great-a-thousand-times-great grandfather for a tree. Especially at those prices. And Joseph? I bet he didn’t care if they had a tree or not. Hey, wasn’t his kid they were celebrating. And fruitcake? Fuhgeddaboutit.
Who knew?
Fast forward a couple thousand years to now. My hopes of cheering up the dusty dracena with a couple of silver balls were cruelly dashed by my now grownup children. Who would’ve thought they’d want to come home for the holidays…. Go figure. Or move back in after college while wanting nothing more than to move out again. And a tree is part of the deal. Not a tree from the nearly eleven forested acres we live on. Most of them are Ponderosa Pine. Too tall. Unless we had a fifteen story atrium in the house. Which we don’t.
Although I might talk Mr. Spouse into building one when he retires. He likes to build things.
But back to the tree. My children are traditionalists. They want a tree from Farmer Bob.
And so we set out on the great tree adventure. DaughterDearest ran hither and yon through the lot, from one tree to the next. And the next. And the next. Greeting each and every one with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever with a bladder problem. Or a six year old on crack. She wanted this one. No! No! She wanted that one. But…but look over there! And off she’d go again.
While I trotted behind her, discretely checking the prices. Holy crap! Some of those suckers required my banker’s signature.
She totally charmed Farmer Bob. Was it the skinny jeans on the size 2 tiny hiney? Or the long blonde hair tucked under the Cal cap. Cal being short for I’m a freakin’ genius! I went to Berkeley!!! Which is like wearing your IQ on your head. Whatever, she was adorable. And yes, she is SMART.
In the end we picked a tree that met all the criteria.
Hers: It was the most beautiful tree ever!
Mine: Wouldn’t have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it.
The End
PS. Still no photos. One more thing for the fix-it ticket.
It’s official. The docs are signed, the keys returned. The war-that-was-never-ever-declared-a-war-by-Congress is OVER.
I was on my way to work, driving down a steep country road when I heard the news. And that’s all it was, just news. Blah blah blah a story. Followed by other stories that I didn’t pay attention to because I was too busy thinking about the war that wasn’t a war.
The non-war that my son returned to three times over the course of four years. But he was one of the lucky ones. He survived. And any injuries he received were not important enough to tell his mother about.
Unlike the 4,487 American service members who didn’t survive. And the 32,226 who were injured severely enough for their moms to be told. And the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis either killed, injured or displaced. But they don’t count because, well, we don’t want to think about them.
It’s over. Maybe. Sort of.
We’ll see….
The question is, will anybody outside of the military even know? Because we, as a people, have been sheltered from the facts. The tone was set by our former leader (he-who-must-not-be-named) when he told us to show our patriotism and go shopping. Don’t worry our pretty little heads about what was going on over there. And then he told the bad guys to ‘bring it on.’
AARUGH!!!
Okay. Step back now. Breathe deep. Much better….
When I was formulating the idea for this blog I told myself it would be non-political. It’s about art and life and everything in between, right? Painting, not politics. But for a long time this war WAS my life, affecting everything I did. It’s why I stopped painting. Why I moved my elderly mother into my studio, ensuring I wouldn’t have a place to paint if I wanted to. Because if I couldn’t save my son, maybe I could save my mom. It’s why I quit my galleries and just let my career turn to dust. You can read about some of that here, written during deployment #2.
It’s why I was a crazy woman–absolutely bat shit crazy— for four plus years. Because being consumed by fear and rage and anticipatory grief will do that to a person. So will going to funerals of young men who are called heros for being unlucky enough to be on the wrong end of a bullet or a bomb. And writing condolence letters to the unlucky moms. Hundreds of letters, until one day I woke up–not that I ever slept–and said, “I CAN NOT. DO THIS. ANYMORE.”
And so I pulled back and allowed some semblance of normalcy to creep into my life. I never for one minute stopped caring. But I had to start living my life again. My son was home. He was safe. For me, it was time to move on.
And now, this war-that-was-never-a-war is over.
But only for some. Because for those who lived it or died in it or came home missing something, or for those whose loved one is never coming home…this war-that-was-never-a-war won’t be over for a long, long time.
Got a cold or some other nameless variety of cootie bugging me tonight. Came on just like that. No warning at all…one moment I’m fine, then the next thing I know I’m deep in whiney-land with a sore throat and chills.
Veg out time. HGTV. Watch people buy, sell, renovate houses. No plot to follow. Just be there for the final reveal. The last five minutes where OMG–I so want to live in that renovated basement apartment. Love the shiny glass tiles on the wall. And the furniture. But mostly I want to live there because it’s CLEAN. Not a dirty sock in sight. And look–a bowl of oranges on the counter. I like oranges….
That’s where my attention span is tonight. Somewhere on the sofa between a couple of dogs, fixating on other people’s houses.
And on-line solitaire. Greatest mind-suck of them all. Except for the distracting Frye boot ads that scroll up the side and catch my eye. Because every once in awhile I see a boot I have to have and click on it. Which screws up my game, totally. I lust after the distressed leather, because I go for the ones that look like they’ve been worn around a barn for years and years and I want them real bad. So bad I dare to click again to see if they have them in my size and color.
Fortunately they don’t. Which is good, really. Because otherwise I’d have some ‘splain’ to do when UPS delivers enough boots to shod a couple dozen feet.
